Office Vacancy - data, evidence and opportunity

This article interrogates the Government's (DCLG, 2013) announcemen,of permitted development rights for office to residential conversion and reviews the availability and reliability of data to quantify and identify the extent of office vacancy in England and Wales. It argues that the announcement can be positive in certain circumstances, although this is contested and currently difficult to evidence, while available vacant property data resources are variable in quality and often difficult to access

Aboriginal Sovereignty and the Politics of Reconciliation: The Constituent Power of the Aboriginal Embassy in Australia

Paper submitted to special issue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. Special Issue on Citizenship Without Community, ed. Vicki Squire and Angharad Closs StephensAs a re-occupation of land immediately in front of Parliament House for six months in 1972, the Aboriginal Embassy was an inspiring demonstration of Aboriginal self-determination and land rights. The Embassy re-appeared intermittently throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with a demonstration held at the site annually on Australia/Invasion Day. It has maintained a continuous presence in Canberra since it was reinstated on its twentieth anniversary in 1992 to declare Aboriginal sovereignty in opposition to the formal reconciliation process. Reconciliation is understood as aligned with a progressive politics within mainstream public discourse in Australia. In this paper, we examine the reactionary politics of reconciliation vis-à-vis the struggle for land rights that the Embassy embodies. To this end we examine a debate within legal theory about the relation between ‘constituted power’ (state sovereignty) and ‘constituent power’ (democratic praxis). Following Antonio Negri, the Embassy can be understood as one manifestation of the constituent power of Aboriginal people (and their non- Aboriginal supporters) that the Australian state appropriates to shore up its own defective claim to sovereignty. We illustrate this by comparing the symbolism of the Aboriginal Embassy with that of Reconciliation Place in Canberra. We complicate this analysis by discussing how the Embassy strategically exploits the ambiguous status of Aboriginal people as citizens within and without the community presupposed by the Australian state. In doing so the Embassy makes present the possibility of a break with the colonial past that is often invoked in the politics of reconciliation but which the Australian state has failed to enact

‘Neither work nor leisure’: motivations of microworkers in the United Kingdom on three digital platforms

This article examines the experience of microworkers living in the United Kingdom. Based on a survey of 1189 microworkers and 17 in-depth interviews, the article explores the experiences of UK-based microworkers on three digital platforms: Prolific, Clickworker and Amazon Mechanical Turk. The article draws on the theoretical framework of self-determination theory to analyse workers’ motivations for performing microwork. It reveals that workers’ relatively high satisfaction with otherwise low-paying and low-status work was possible because workers conceptualised their activity as occupying an ambiguous space and time in their lives, blurring traditional distinctions between work and leisure. These findings contribute to our understanding of how microworkers experience their relationship to work in the United Kingdom

Realigning the built environment

Conversion and adaptation are essential to keeping pace with a dynamic real estate market, argue Dr Kevin Muldoon-Smith and Dr Paul Greenhalgh

Passing the buck without the bucks- some reflections on fiscal decentralisation and the business rate retention strategy in England

Kevin and Paul reflect on the intricacies and potential impacts of the government’s drive toward fiscal decentralisation and independence. They focus on the government’s Business Rate Retention Strategy (BRRS) and its consequences for local authorities in contrasting locations

Catholic Identity and the Laity

Paul F. Lakeland is a contributing author, Maturity and the Lay Vocation: From Ecclesiology to Ecclesiality p. 241-260. Original essays explore the role of the laity within the Catholic Church and the nature of Catholic identity. –Publisher description.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/religiousstudies-books/1003/thumbnail.jp

Biotechnology and the Environment: A Regulatory Proposal

The human race now holds the ability to alter the hereditary characteristics of all life forms through the use of biotechnology. Although the benefits seem limitless, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the risks this technology poses to human health and the environment. In Canada, the biotechnology industry is largely unregulated. The authors explore the potential and associated risks, and propose some suggestions for its regulation

Planners in the Future City: Using City Information Modelling to Support Planners as Market Actors

Recently, Adams and Tiesdell (2010), Tewdwr-Jones (2012) and Batty (2013) have outlined the importance of information and intelligence in relation to the mediation and management of land, property and urban consumers in the future city. Traditionally, the challenge for urban planners was the generation of meaningful and timely information. Today, the urban planners’ challenge is no longer the timely generation of urban data, rather, it is in relation to how so much information can be exploited and integrated successfully into contemporary spatial planning and governance. The paper investigates this challenge through a commentary on two City Information Modelling (CIM) case studies at Northumbria University, UK. This commentary is grouped around four key themes, Accessibility and availability of data, accuracy and consistency of data, manageability of data and integration of data. It is also designed to provoke discussion in relation to the exploitation and improvement of data modelling and visualisation in the urban planning discipline and to contribute to the literature in related fields. The paper concludes that the production of information, its use and modelling, can empower urban planners as they mediate and contest state-market relations in the city. However, its use should be circumspect as data alone does not guarantee delivery of a sustainable urban future, rather, emphasis and future research should be placed upon interpretation and use of data